


words can only do harm

by milkdaze (flowerstems)



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:18:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6174559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerstems/pseuds/milkdaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it's not jealousy, not always. sometimes it is, yes, she won't lie, but most times it's just a wish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	words can only do harm

**Author's Note:**

> written for the [#kissyourgirl commentathon](http://femslashbb.livejournal.com/12935.html). also posted[ here.](http://femslashbb.livejournal.com/12935.html?thread=169863#t169863) title from depeche mode's enjoy the silence.

caroline never says it. she barely lets herself think it without covering the edges of the thought up with a long list of what she wants to do, what she needs to do, but sometimes she looks at elena and all she can feel is. she can't put a name to it.

it's not jealousy, not always. sometimes it is, yes, she won't lie, but most times it's just a wish.

wishing she can be that skilled. wishing she can be that stunning. wishing she can be that warm. wishing she can be that loved, that loving. wishing she can be close to elena. sometimes she flat out wishes she can _be_ elena.

one night she says it, a heavy whisper in the silence of her bathroom. she holds her breath before she does and it feels like her world almost falls apart when she lets it out, when she verbalises what it means. everything she has been telling herself about the way she feels when it comes to elena unravels, theoretical fabric fraying at the seams, and she doesn't tell anyone about it. doesn't think about it again. never says it again.

then she hears about the accident. in that moment, she wishes, wishes with every fibre of her being, that she had told elena what she thought, what she thought she felt. but she didn't.

elena is fine, physically. she doesn't change much, yet she does. she changes in ways caroline can't ask about again, not without hurting elena more. caroline doesn't tell her anything, not even now that she has a second chance. she can't bring herself to.

she follows elena to the graveyard one afternoon, watches her write in her diary, cry, and caroline thinks she has intruded on something far too personal. but even after seeing elena like that, so broken compared to what she lets the world see, caroline only feels whatever it is she feels stronger.

it's a lot like want, burning the inside of her throat. she won't let it be labelled anything else.

even then, when she's back home in her bathroom again, thinking about elena, she doesn't let herself say it. she doesn't repeat what she had said before the accident. instead, she whispers, the words heavy under her breath as she holds the mirror's gaze, " _why can't i be you_?"

for a moment, she remembers elena crying in the graveyard. she cries, too.


End file.
